memory of the transaction is kept alive on the lips and in the hearts of the race. So durable are such observances, that the external ceremonies often continue to be observed as old customs, even while the meaning of them fades out of knowledge; and be sure the meaning would have dropped out of mind generations earlier but for the custom.

Our Lord intended this new memorial to serve the same purpose as the old memorial in the embodiment, and preservation, and proclamation of some of the great foundation truths of religion. St. Paul puts this view of the Holy Communion distinctly and forcibly before us: "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He come (1 Cor. xi. 26). The word translated "shew " means to "proclaim" as a herald does. It may include the idea of a solemn proclamation before God, such as the priests made when they blew their silver trumpets over their burnt-offerings for a memorial before God, but it also includes this idea of a sym

bolical preaching of the doctrine of Christ crucified before the eyes of men. Think what the great truths are which are symbolised in the Holy Communion, and you will see that in making that ceremonial the great act of worship of the Christian religion, our Lord was providing for the striking preaching thereby of the great truths of the Christian religion. For the Holy Communion is a witness and teacher of these great truths :

Original sin.

The incapacity of man to make atonement to God for sin.

The incapacity of man to recover himself from the inherited corruption of his nature.

That atonement must be made for him. That a new principle of spiritual life must be given him.

That Christ Jesus, God Incarnate, by His sacrifice upon the cross made the atone

ment.

That by communicating His Divine nature to our human nature, He gives us new spiritual life.

That He has reconciled us to God, so that

God receives us as friends and guests at His table.

That He has reconciled us to one another, and restored the brotherhood of mankind in Himself as the centre of the sacred union, so that we kneel together as convives at God's table, having communion with God and with one another in that sacred sacramental food.

CHAPTER V.

THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE.

I HAVE now to ask your attention to the second aspect of the Holy Communion,-that God makes use of it as a chief channel of His grace.

Here I must ask you to step aside with me a few moments from the main argument, and to give your careful attention to some considerations which I think are necessary to an appreciation of this part of our great subject.

When we talk about "means of grace" we assume a union of the invisible and spiritual with the visible and material. We assume that supernatural effects are associated by God with the due employment of natural agencies.

But a number of clever people are questioning just now the very existence of the supernatural; and will you forgive me for saying that men like you-men of education and intelli

gence, but too busy now to read much-get a great deal of your science and philosophy, as well as your news, from your daily newspaper and your fortnightly magazine, and your religion from your weekly sermon; and you find all kinds of doubts and difficulties suggested in your paper and your magazine, which, very likely, you do not get satisfactorily answered in your sermons? This reiterated suggestion of doubts which are not sufficiently answered, is very apt to leave a feeling of dubiety in our minds, and sometimes to a greater extent than we are quite aware of. I wish therefore to be allowed to say a few words on this matter to begin with, so as to make safer the ground upon which we have to build the subsequent argument.

It is a few popular writers on physical science -clever men in their own department of literature, men of the highest character, men of earnest conscientiousness, I am glad to believe-who have raised this doubt, or rather, raised it over again, as to the existence of the supernatural. They suggest to us the theory that there is no soul in man, no God in nature, nothing but matter and force and natural laws. Physical